One of the more
peculiar figures to emerge from the original Masters of the Universe
line -- and brother, that's saying something given some of the stuff
that came out of that line -- that somehow achieved a certain legend
all of his own, was certainly FAKER.

Faker was a repaint. He was
OBVIOUSLY a repaint. He was a repaint before repaints became blatantly
obvious and commonplace. Yet somehow, he was a COOL repaint.

Faker was He-Man. The explanation
was that he was a robot double of He-Man built by Skeletor to serve
the forces of evil. And yet, either Skeletor was ridiculously color-blind,
assumed that everyone else on Eternia was color-blind, or was so egotistical
that he decided to give this robotic double of He-Man his own skin color.
Faker was a light blue He-Man, with brown hair, purple trunks and boots,
and instead of the heroic harness that He-Man wore, he had an orange
version of Skeletor's own shoulder harness. And if you looked, you could
see this little panel of robotic circuitry, a sticker placed on the
chest of Faker under the harness.

Somehow, this silly repaint
garnered such a legend within the Masters of the Universe world, that
during the original run of figures, Mattel actually had to re-release
the figure at one point to meet fan demand. Thus when Faker returned,
he came on a slightly revised card that said "He's Back!"
on it, no doubt with some of Mattel's creative personnel at the time
shaking their heads and wondering why so many people wanted a blue He-Man
wannabee.

So now we are into the new
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE series. The figures are slightly bigger, they're
more detailed, better proportioned for the most part, and are one of
the few if not the only toy lines from the 80's that have actually improved
with their reappearance. There's about a dozen figures available, with
the promise of many more classic characters overhauled into new forms
as shown at Toy Fair 2003.

So with all of this sculpting
and detail innovation, what's been one of the questions on the minds
of a lot of longtime fans? Hey, Mattel -- you gonna do Faker this time
around?!

If there's any personnel
left at Mattel who worked on the original Masters of the Universe line,
you know they probably started shaking their heads and thinking, "Aw,
come ON, already...!"

Fortunately, TOYFARE magazine
got together with Mattel, and agreed to do an official FAKER figure
as an exclusive to their magazine. And they must've assumed that anyone
who ordered it would've been pretty desperate to get it, because mine
showed up via Federal Express, and I don't offhand remember checking
that particular box on the order form!

Faker is a very cool figure.
And they made him just like they did before. They took the basic new
He-Man figure, cast him in the same blue plastic as Skeletor, gave him
brown hair, purple trunks and boots, Skeletor's harness in orange, and
yep -- there's a nice little sticker of robotic circuitry underneath
the harness.

There's a few bonuses, though.
The figure comes with an orange and purple replica of He-Man's sword,
complete with moving parts. Faker might be able to give He-Man a decent
fight. There's a slight metallic sheen to the trunks and boots, possibly
to accentuate the fact that this is supposed to be a robot. And his
eyes are red. He-Man's are blue. In the original Masters of the Universe
line, eye color wasn't even a factor. It was just a black outline. So
-- nice touch.

The detail level put into
these new Masters of the Universe figures is truly excellent, and Faker,
being taken directly from the He-Man molds, is obviously no exception,
and overall, he is certainly a worthwhile addition.

I suspect the figure is still
available through ToyFare, and comes packaged in a nice window box much
the same as the recent G.I.Joe Snake-Eyes/Scarlett two-pack. I definitely
recommend Faker. If you're maintaining any sort of collection of the
new MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE figures, then that collection is simply
not complete without the new FAKER!